Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) chambers that operate at high temperatures and high power levels provide several advantages for processing substrates. Although operating at high temperatures and high power improves film properties (e.g., stress density rho, and the like) and provides good RF receiver efficiency, high temperatures and high power causes overheating, substrate backside arcing, and chamber variation. Specifically, existing electrostatic chucks (ESC) currently used for high temperature/high power Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) applications have limitations when used with RF power. Those limitations may include, but are not limited to, 1) ESC overheating when the RF current in the electrodes gets too high during high power processes, 2) substrate backside arcing to a DC voltage sensing circuit (i.e., referred to herein as a Vdc sensing terminal or center-tap (c-tap) circuit) disposed on the surface of the ESC in very high frequency (VHF) applications, and 3) process variations caused by unshielded wiring that provides power to various components such as heaters and electrodes disposed in the ESC.
In view of the foregoing limitations, there is a need for an improved electrostatic chuck to eliminate or reduce the aforementioned problems associated with high temperature/high power PVD processes.